Many manufacturing processes involve the use of dyes, usually dissolved in water, for the coloring of various materials. Because of the intensive use of dyes in modern industry, clarification of the dye water waste has become a difficult problem. Current technology involves the use of a bleaching agent, usually chlorine and sometimes ozone. However, such bleaching processes tend to be quite expensive. Moreover, where chlorine is utilized as a bleaching agent, the chlorine must, in turn, be removed by other chemicals in order to comply with government regulation relating to permissible levels of chlorine in discharged waste water. Various water clarification methods have been explored for removing materials from waste water. For example, the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Mines Report of Investigation/1976, RI 8197, entitled "Dewatering and Densification of Coal Waste By Direct Current --Laboratory Tests" discloses certain exprerimental methods for clarifying and/or Dewatering coal waste water. Also representative of the water clarification art are the following patents:
______________________________________ U.S. Pat. No. Date Country ______________________________________ 3,035,992 May 22, 1963 U.S. 3,414,497 December 3, 1968 U.S. 3,600,286 August 17, 1971 U.S. 3,664,951 May 23, 1972 U.S. 3,915,820 October 28, 1982 U.S. 4,163,716 August 7, 1979 U.S. 566,776 August 1977 USSR 789,436 December 1980 USSR 842,035 June 1981 USSR 916,418 April 1982 USSR 1,011,548 April 1983 USSR 5,247,426 December 1977 Japan 5,328,959 March 1978 Japan 91,504 October 1983 Europe 87/01057 August 15, 1986 PCT 2,208,076 September 14, 1972 Germany ______________________________________
Whereas certain of the above referenced prior art systems and methods utilize electrolysis in the removal of dye from waste water, such systems and methods tend to operate inefficiently due to the use of less than optimum current densities between anodes and cathodes, and due to the less than optimum sizing of anodes.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved water clarification apparatus and method for removing dyes and other organic matter from waste water.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an improved water clarification apparatus and method for removing dye from dye waste water which does not require the uses of bleaching agents or the introduction of other chemicals into the waste water being treated.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide an improved water clarification apparatus which is inexpensive to manufacture, and operates at optimum efficiency utilizing preselected current densities.